Radical Technologies

Overall I enjoyed this book and the in depth look it takes on technologies of the present and future. While it does adopt a fairly doomsday tone throughout with a bleak picture accumulating via the authors opinions it is scattered with silver linings and possibilities that lift it just enough. I took issue with the heavy use of academic language which presented quite a barrier to accessibility and enjoyment but this grew familiar and less jarring as I progressed.

A good book with some powerful ideas and insight that definitely increased my perception of how we can expect technologies to impact the human experience.

Our everyday lives are more and more steered and regulated by technologies that are ultimately driven by a desire for profit, control and power. Greenfield's book stresses the need for a better understanding and more critical thought on these technologies surrounding us. He chooses today's most pervasive and innovative fields (smartphone, internet of things, augmented reality, digital fabrication, cryptocurrency, blockchain, automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence) and dedicates a chapter to each, analysing their impact on society. He extrapolates their trajectories into the future and picks apart how even the most idealistic designs would end up in thrall to political power-dynamics. His outlooks are mostly (but not exclusively) pessimistic, which makes sense considering the whole book is meant to be a big warning sign.

Basically - no technology will provide us a magic solution for creating a fair, nondiscriminatory, clean, conflict-free future, and we should all learn to be more critical when new tech innovations appear promising us these utopian futures.

Definitely an important and smart book. 4.5